Like most people I know next to nothing about this new pope except that he is American! That stunned me and my friends because, like many American Catholics, we figured that it wouldn't happen in our lifetimes!
I am praying for him as he shepherds the Church.
Virginity is an ideal which the pagans had no right to misunderstand. For, in theory, they too, honoured it; and it should have commended itself to their heathen instinct for sacrifice. For the point os a sacrifice is that the victim should be spotless, the best of its kind. You must not offer what you can well afford to spare, but what will cost you something. ... In order to give up something to God, we forego not the sinful pleasures whch we have no right to in any case, but the lawful pleasures which he has given us to enjoy if we will.Talk about setting modern ideas on their ear with an argument that is completely logical.Ronald Knox, Captive Flames
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| Louis Katz Punning bookplate dated 1922 , artist's initials EK |
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| Bookplate of John D. Rockefeller. Artist: GETZ. Pratt Institute. via Books and Art |
"... born of the Virgin Mary"
...Mary, the mother of Jesus, is an icon of beauty and purity because she is a virgin. But I'm aware that this term, too, [like the term "purity"] has been misunderstood and maligned. We think of a virgin simply as a person who hasn't had sexual intercourse. This is the shallowest of definitions. Defining a "virgin" as someone who hasn't had sexual intercourse is like defining a person from Idaho as "a person who has never been to Paris." It may be true that most Idahoans haven't been to Paris, but to define an untraveled Idahoan by that simple negative definition is too small. Even the most stay-at-home fellow from Idaho is bigger than a negative definition.
What were the early Christians thinking when they honored the Virgin Mary? Was it simply their form of goddess worship? [as some nonbelievers would say] If so, why the emphasis on virginity? When you look at what they believed about Mary, it turns out that they were honoring her for far more than the biological fact that a maiden remained intact. For them the Virgin wasn't just an untouched woman. Her physical virginity was a sign of something far more. It was an indication of her whole character. In her they sensed a kind of virginity that was a positive and powerful virtue. Mary represented all that was natural, abundant, positive, and free. Mary was a virgin in the same way that we call a forest "virgin": she was fresh and natural, majestic and mysterious. Mary's virginity wasn't simply the natural beauty and innocence of a teenage girl. It held the primeval purity of Eden and the awesome innocence of Eve...
You might imagine that such total innocence and goodness would make Mary a sort of Galilean wonderwoman. It's true that her innocence was extraordinary, but it was also very ordinary. That is to say that while it was momentous, it didn't seem remarkable at the same time. There is a curious twist to real goodness. It's summed up by the observation that what is natural isn't unusual. If a person is really good, he is humble; and if he is humble, he is simply who he should be. There is nothing bizarre or egotistical or eccentric about him. There is therefore nothing about him that calls attention to him. Truly good people blend in. They are at home with themselves, and no one is out of place when they are at home. In the same way, Mary wasn't noticed in Nazareth. Because she was natural, she didn't stand out. Mary fit in because she was simply and wholly who she was created to be. Because she was perfectly natural, she was perfectly ordinary. Therefore, she was both as marvelous and as unremarkable as a morning in May.
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| William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905), The Madonna of the Roses via Wikipedia |
In Episode 355 of A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast, Scott and I discuss the Tamil action thriller Vikram Vedha (2017)
The Church is not merely armed against the heresies of the past or even of the present, but equally against those of the future.That's what divine planning will get you — total coverage.G.K. Chesterton
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| Automobile Bookplate from the Antioch Company via Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie where you may find a 2-part series on car bookplates |
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| Bookplate of Edward Penfield |
Is not remembering precisely the retaining of corporeal things in an incorporeal manner?Romano Guardini, The Conversion of Augustine
Wow. Blew my mind and yet it is such a simple idea. Body and soul working together.
Based on the true story of British humanitarian Nicholas Winton, the film alternates between following 79-year old Winton reminiscing on his past, and Winton at 29 who makes it his mission to help predominantly Jewish children in Czechoslovakia to flee in 1938–39, just before Hitler invades.
A really well done movie about an incident in WWII which should be known better. It really emphasized for me the cost of war to the innocent. As Nicky says, "That bloody Hitler."
Most of all, we realize the power of good to make a difference. And that's the point we should live by.
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| William Bouguereau (1825-1905) L'innocence [Innocence] |
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| St. Joseph with the Infant Jesus, Guido Reni via WikiPaintings |
We celebrate two feast days for Joseph: March 19 for Joseph the Husband of Mary and May 1 for Joseph the Worker.
There is much we wish we could know about Joseph -- where and when he was born, how he spent his days, when and how he died. But Scripture has left us with the most important knowledge: who he was -- "a righteous man" (Matthew 1:18).
I love St. Joseph. He was the quiet man of action. Those are my kind of guys.
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| Resurrection of Jairus's daughter. Etching by E.F. Mohn after G.C. von Max. |
Jesus did not want more than these three Apostles to be present: three was the number of witnesses laid down by the Law (Deut 19:15). "For Jesus, being humble, never acted in an ostentatious way" (Theophilactus, Enarratio in Evangelium Marci, in loc.). Besides these were the three disciples closest to Jesus: later, only they will be with him at the Transfiguration (cf. 9:2) and at his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane (cf. 14:33).
Jewish mourning customs were vivid and detailed, and practically all of them were designed to stress the desolation and the final separation of death. The triumphant victorious hope of the Christian faith was totally absent.
Immediately death had taken place a loud wailing was set up so that all might know death had struck. The wailing was repeated at the grave side. The mourners hung over the dead body, begging for a response from the silent lips. They beat their breasts; they tore their hair; and they rent their garments...
Flute players were essential. Throughout most of the ancient world, in Rome, in Greece, in Phoenicia, in Assyria and in Palestine, the wailing of the flute was inseparably connected with death and tragedy....
When death came, a mourner was forbidden to work, to annoint himself or to wear shoes. Even the poorest man must cease from work for three days. He must not travel with goods; and the prohibition of work extended even to his servants ... It was the custom not to eat at a table, but to eat sitting on the floor, using a chair as a table. It was the custom, which still survives, to eat eggs dipped in ashes and salt.
There was one curious custom. All water from the house, and from the three houses on each side, was emptied out, because it was said that the Angel of Death procured death with a sword dipped in water taken from close at hand. There was one peculiarly pathetic custom. In the case of a young life cut off too soon, if the young person had never been married, a form of marriage service was part of the burial rites. For the time of mourning the mourner was exempt from the keeping of the law, because he was supposed to be beside himself, mad with grief.
The Gospel of Mark(The Daily Bible Series, rev. ed.)
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| Rembrandt (1606–1669) Christ and St Mary Magdalen at the Tomb via Wikipedia |
A stylish urban fantasy about the Monkey King, a powerful immortal banished to the human world, and a young woman who can see ghosts and spirits. Their intertwined destinies and a contract made years ago lead them to clash and become allies, battling evil and exploring themes of fate, love, and redemption.
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